


pity seek what we might lose

by qiras



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, HE CHORMP, Heat Sex, Omega Rey, also red riding hood au ish, but this is really just an excuse for forest sex, i cannot stress enough how little i care about "accuracy" wrt this fic, no research was even googled in the making of this fic, pwp again cause that's my brand, she chormp, they chormp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-09-11 22:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qiras/pseuds/qiras
Summary: rey has been travelling back and forth between the towns of takodana and ahch-to, running errands for maz, for years, and not once has she met anyone on the road-- until today. but it's quite alright; after all, who's afraid of the big bad wolf?





	1. i. in a weak might our weakness elude

**Author's Note:**

> for clara, but that bitch won't give me her ao3 username! but anyway, this is her fault thanks

Maz hadn’t told Rey what was in the basket when she gave it to her. “Never you mind,” she’d said, “that’s not important. You just make sure that basket gets to old Luke Skywalker.”

Rey learned the importance of not asking questions long ago, so she said nothing, only accepted the basket and set out on the path from Takodana to Ahch-To.

“It goes through the forest,” Maz reminded her, “so don’t do anything stupid, and don’t talk to any strangers. Unless they’re tall, dark, and handsome! And _rich_!” Maz had cackled at her own joke then, as she is wont to do, and all but pushed Rey out the door.

Fortunately for Maz, she can almost always count on Rey to deliver what needs to be delivered; Rey’s a Beta, totally unthreatening and unattractive to most, if not all, passers-by. She’s never turned an Alpha’s head, never had an Omega grow more territorial of their mate in her presence. Betas slip through the world unnoticed, which is fitting: going unnoticed is one of Rey’s especial gifts.

Today’s delivery should be a particularly easy one. The forest is still and quiet, the only sounds the animals moving in the trees and the swish of her skirts around her ankles. It’s a pretty morning; the season rests right on the border between spring and summer and you can feel it in the air, warm enough the sunlight feels pleasant instead of overbearing, and with her well-loved scarlet cloak wrapped around her body, she’s not at all cold.

The journey from Takodana from Ahch-To shouldn’t be terribly long, either. Really, Rey should be able to make it home before nightfall easily, which is nice. She doesn’t really like the dark. Too many things like to make it their hiding-places, and she’d much prefer to see them plainly.

It does get a little boring, Rey will admit, to walk alone in the forest, particularly on a road others don’t often take. But she’d really prefer not to see anyone, so she doesn’t mind that too terribly.

Her head snaps up when she hears hoofbeats in the distance. Hardly anyone takes this road at all-- but anyone who can ride, they’ll take the main road. This road isn’t pleasant for one to ride, unless one is a very skilled horseman. And hardly anyone in the Lesser Chandrilan area owns a horse, much less knows how to ride one. Then of course, the number of those who could ride well enough to take this path on purpose-- that’s even lower.

So Rey can think of very few people who might be traveling this way by horseback, and she’d prefer to meet none of them.

She ducks off the path, pressing herself against a tree, and wraps her cloak tighter against herself, cursing the bright red of the garment. She slips her hood from her hair and peeks from behind the tree. Her curiosity always has been rather indomitable.

There's a man astride the horse, one she doesn't recognize. He's huge, she can tell, broad and tall, all dressed in black. His horse is black too, and it makes Rey smile a bit. He certainly seems to have an ideal look in mind, and he's adhering to it remarkably. His hair is black too, nearly shoulder-length and wavy. It looks soft, and she wonders how it would feel between her fingers. His face is angular and solemn, but his mouth is soft, and it lends a bit of gentleness to his whole countenance. 

Then he comes even closer to where Rey is hidden, and his scent hits her, and it’s like nothing she’s ever smelled before. It's rich and smoky and sweet-- _he_ is. She wants to curl into it, into him, because God, just the scent of him makes her feel warm and protected and safe.

And all the parts of her brain that are still rational are _terrified_ by that, because she doesn't know him, but if she had to guess who he was... he's the right age, and the cut of his clothing and the lay of it on his (exceptionally broad) body spoke of wealth well above average. She doesn't know him, no, but if she had to guess... she'd say it's Lord Solo. Who Finn was once employed by and despises. Who reputedly broke his mother’s heart and possibly killed his father. 

She shouldn’t want to run to him, and not all of her does. A good part of her wants to run away from him, and it battles with the part that wants to run toward him, and the end result is that she's frozen in place, body refusing to move at all.

“Omega,” his deep voice rings through the words and hits Rey somewhere around her stomach, ringing confusion through her mind. He can't be talking to her-- but who else could he be talking to? Rey's always had an unusually good nose for a Beta, and she can't scent anyone else near them. He might be able to, though. His senses must be sharper than hers. So she stays stock still.

“You can't hide from me,” he says, but it's colored with amusement, as if he likes that she's even trying. She can hear him dismounting his horse, but she doesn't dare look. “I won't hurt you,” he promises. His voice has dropped to something low and soothing, and Rey wants to melt into it. “Come on out, Omega.”

Rey shakes her head immediately, not realizing until after she’s done it that he won't, of course, have seen it. He has to be confused. She is not an Omega. She can't be. She's nineteen and has never experienced heat or rut, so she's a Beta, despite the glands on the back of her neck that might signal otherwise if her body had behaved differently in the year or two after she'd begun bleeding monthly. As it was, they were simply an anomaly she wore her hair down to hide.

Footsteps crackle to her right, and the scent of him in her nose grows stronger. Her breath comes faster now, skin feeling hot and too-tight. The back of her neck itches, but she knows, somehow, that scratching it won't help. She sees a dark figure in the corner of her eye, and evidently every part of her agrees having her back to him is not what they want, because she unfreezes enough to turn and face him.

“There you are.” He sounds pleased, and it triggers something in her mind. _Good_ , it tells her. _We like it when Alpha is pleased._ “Who are you?”

“Why should I tell you that?” she demands, even as that same thing tells her to _do as Alpha says, make Alpha happy_.

“You are under no obligation,” he acknowledges. His hands hang at his sides, open, palms toward her. “But it would be kind to save me the trouble of finding it out myself.”

Fear claws its way through her stomach until it quiets the other voice in the back of her head. “Why would you do that? Why do you care?”

He shushes her, taking half a step forward, like he wants to comfort her, but he's restraining himself. Rey appreciates that; she’s not sure what she would do if he didn't. “I already told you, little one, you don't need to be afraid of me. I will not hurt you.” His gaze holds hers carefully, and something in it tells her he means it. “I'm... curious,” he says.

Rey snorts. “I promise you, you aren't. There's nothing for you to be curious about.”

“You are unlike any Omega I've ever met.”

“I'm not an Omega!” she cries.

“You are,” he says calmly. “A lesser Alpha would not be able to tell, but I can.”

“That is a weighty claim.” Rey's hands clutch at the tree behind her. Something about it, the rough bark under her hands, eases her breathing. “You must think highly of yourself.”

“Do you not know who I am?” he says, that same amusement laced through his words. “Lord Benjamin Solo Skywalker Amidala Organa of Chandrila.” That's right, that's his title-- or most of it, anyway. Rey had forgotten. The locals took to calling him Lord Solo because it's his least prestigious name and no one enjoys the possibility of Lord Solo being allowed to forget his deceased father.

She ought to tread carefully here. Now he's confessed his high birth, she should treat him with the respect afforded that, or he might very well renege on his promise not to hurt her.

Rey does not often do the things she ought.

“And...?” she asks defiantly, her eyebrows raised and chin tilted upward.

Lord Solo does the most unexpected thing, then. He tips his head back and laughs. “Sometimes I wonder that myself.” He asks her a second time, “Who are you?”

“I do not think I should tell you, now.”

“I still will not harm you, Omega.” He's so big, tall and broad-- it would not be difficult for him to kill her, even, if he wished. And no one would be able to make Lord Solo pay for the crime of murdering a low born woman, especially if she really is an Omega. Omega women are little more than property, and a rich and powerful man like Lord Solo could very much do as he pleased with her. But he makes no move toward her.

“What proof have I,” she asks, pressing her back more closely to the tree, “that I can trust your word?”

“What would you like?”

Her eyes widen at his instantaneous offer. “Have you any weapons upon your person?”

“I have,” he nods. “Would it put you at ease to have them in your possession?”

She nods quickly, and, keeping his eyes carefully on her face, he reaches around himself to unbuckle the belt that sheathed his sword. He takes the weapon in both hands and offers it to her slowly. Rey grabs it, and drops it on the ground next to her.

“Now, will you tell me who you are? Or will you continue to force me to call you Omega?”

“Rey,” she says.

“Rey,” he repeats, and that strange voice inside her purrs, quite satisfied with the way her name sounds on his lips. She should like to hear it again, it insists. The back of her neck burns hotter at the sound, and her core muscles tense. “Where are you from, Rey?”

“Nowhere.” Her hands dig themselves deeper into the bark of the tree. She wants him to leave. She wants him to stay. She wants-- she wants him to stop talking like this, acting like this, as if he likes her defiance, as if he cares for her comfort. Alphas don’t, in her experience, like when anyone gives them attitude, but especially an Omega, nor do they particularly care for their feelings. Lord Solo does not follow what she expects from an Alpha, and Rey does not care for unexpected things.

“Well.” He laughs a little. “I don’t think that’s quite right. Everyone is from somewhere.” He steps closer to her, and Rey might feel threatened, but she’s somehow very sure he didn’t do it on purpose. No, it looked more like she drew him in, like she called to him or pulled on a rope and he’d no choice but to go as she demanded.

“Jakku. I’m from Jakku.”

He leans closer to her still. “Then I suppose ‘Nowhere’ was an accurate statement after all.”

She can’t bear to look into his eyes, dark and intense as they are, for one second longer, or she is certain she will combust. Her gaze finds his shoulders, his chest, and... lower. He’s very big, which she’d known, of course, but her slow, not-entirely accidental perusal of his body brings it again to the forefront of her mind. The glands on her neck ache again, more insistently. _Look how big, how strong, Alpha could protect you so perfectly_ , _care for you so well,_ the voice presses.

“Rey of Jakku,” he says softly. His hand hovers near her face, thumb poised over her cheekbone, and she tilts her chin up and thinks that if he wants to touch her, maybe... she’ll let him.

And she does.

His hand settles on her cheek, thumb brushing over her skin, and she can’t breathe. Her skin grows hotter, and what was once a fine spring morning, bordering upon chilly, actually, now feels warmer than any given day in July. He leans down, mouth drawing closer and closer to hers. The heat from his body soaks into her skin and she feels even hotter, almost uncomfortably so. It’s like he’s a magnet, the way she’s drawn to him, and somehow, he draws closer to her, though she couldn’t tell you who moved.

“Tell me to stop,” he commands, and he’s so close to her, she can feel his breath moving across her lips. “Rey. If you do not want this, if _you_ don’t want this-- tell me to stop.”

“Stop,” she gasps, and he retreats immediately, like she’s burned him.

“May I see you again?” he asks. His voice has regained the formality he had lost to the heat of her skin. “Court you, perhaps?”

And with that show of deference, that sign of respect and-- and _courtesy_ , that he _cares_ about her feelings, any final resistance to him disappears. She grasps the front of his tunic and hauls him to her, presses her mouth to his. The beast roars in her chest in contentment and she sighs into his mouth. He moves forward, presses her harder into the tree, his thigh slotting itself between hers. She moans and rocks her hips against him.

He growls and his hands drop to her thighs, pushing up the heavy fabric of her skirts. She whines, and when his hands touch her bare skin, it’s like she’s been shocked by lightning. Her knees feel weak, and her glands ache again. She rolls her shoulders and sighs, tips her head back and presses her thighs into his touch.

He drops to his knees in front of her.

“What... what are you doing?” She holds her skirts at her knees, and he takes the opportunity to roll her stockings down her legs.

“Trust me, Omega. I am going to take care of you.”

His words send a rush of heat to her core and she whimpers. Somehow, even though she barely knows him, she trusts him, and sh trusts whatever he’s doing that involves hooking her legs over his shoulders and using the tree to support her back. His breath fans across her cunt and she clenches around nothing, a high-pitched moan escaping her throat. She needs _more_ , of _what_ , she’s not exactly sure, but she _needs_ it, and when he presses his lips to her cunt in what would be a chaste kiss were it not for its placement, she thinks _oh. This is it._

“Lord-- Lord Solo,” she gasps. “Oh... _oh_...”

“Ben,” he says from beneath her skirts. His mouth is still close enough she can feel the vibrations of his words echo through her core. “When we are this intimate, my pretty girl, I want you to call me by my Christian name.”

“Please, Ben.” One of her hands finds his head and strokes through his hair. “I... I need...”

“Need what, Omega?” His tongue darts out and licks the slick from her lips and her body nearly crumples.

“I don’t-- I don’t _know_ ,” she cries, tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s alright, sweetheart.” He licks up the length of her slit again, long and slow. “I do. I’m going to take care of you,” he croons. His strong arms wrap over her thighs, pressing her solidly into his mouth, and she gasps. His tongue traces over every bit of her cunt, like he wants to be able to map it with only his tongue by the time this is over. It feels... strange. Like nothing she’s ever felt before. Not bad. And then he finds a place she knows, one she’d found with her own fingers years ago, that little nub at the top of her slit, and quite suddenly she changes her mind. This isn’t just _not bad_ , this is _incredible_.

What is more incredible to her is that Ben doesn’t seem to be getting anything out of this. All that Rey has learned suggests men, especially Alphas, care little for their partners and how they might be feeling. But here, she, an orphaned girl, has the most powerful man in the land on his knees at her feet, making her feel good. She thinks of mere minutes ago, and how he had backed away as soon as she’d asked, and what little of her mind can still form thought wonders at this strange man she’d always heard described at a tyrant, kneeling at an Omega’s feet and listening to her desires. Perhaps, her mind offers vaguely, he’s not the monster she’s been taught he is.

His tongue moves from her clit to nudge at her entrance, and then it pushes past, and she whimpers as it strokes the front of her walls, something hot sparking in her veins. Then his nose rubs against her clit and she whimpers, a soft “oh” leaving her mouth as she bites down on her bottom lip. She breathes deeply, some kind of feeling rising in her belly, and then it crashes over her, and she can feel it everywhere, her thighs, her cunt, her breasts, her stomach, and especially, especially the back of her neck.

When she can see again, she sees Ben emerge, wiping his mouth, and a little portion of it rolls through her body again at the sight of his glistening mouth and she grasps at the bark of the tree for support.

“Let me kiss you,” he whispers, “please.”

She does, of course, she does, and it’s strange to taste herself on him, salty and earthy, but she doesn’t hate it. She might even like it. Her heavy skirts fall back around her ankles, but with the way he is pressed against her, she can feel him, hard and hot through his trousers. Tentatively, she slips a hand down and cups him. He groans into her mouth and leans into her further, as if he’s now the one having a hard time staying on his feet. Her hands find the laces of his trousers and tug on them.

“Careful, sweet girl,” he pants. “Do nothing you are not ready to do.”

She unlaces his breeches, heeding his warning carefully, until he rests, hot and heavy, in her palm. “Should I use my mouth on you too?”

Ben’s eyes slide shut and he groans again. “If-- if you like, but please-- do not do anything you do not wish to do.”

Feeling emboldened by how clearly she affects him, she spins them around so his back is to the tree and drops to her knees, just as he had done for her. She carefully grasps him in both her hands, then sticks her tongue out and gives the head of his cock a little kitten lick.

Not bad.

She takes the whole head into her mouth then, sucking carefully. Maybe... She takes a little more into her mouth, then a little more, until she’s got about half of it in her mouth, and her body protests if she tries to take more. She swirls her tongue around his cock, tracing one vein with her tongue. Slowly, just like Ben had done for her, she runs her tongue across every part of his cock, taking special note of those places that make him gasp above her. Something salty and bitter weeps from the head of his cock, and she licks at that too. She doesn’t _like_ it, exactly, but it tastes undeniably of him, and that she does like. She licks at it again, and he moans. Rey loves that. Ben moans beautifully.

Her hands move up his spit-slicked shaft, and he bucks his hips into them. _Interesting_. She does it again, mimicking the motions his thrusts would make. _Of course_. Rey takes him into her mouth again, moving up and down his cock with her hands and her mouth now. His face is flushed, and he has a hand stroking her hair, filthy praise falling from his mouth.

“Good, good little omega. You look so pretty on your knees, angel. God, your mouth feels so good, precious girl. Sweetheart. Faster, _faster_ , please, _Rey_.”

She’s never heard better poetry.

And she tries to move even faster, like her Alpha asked her too, her mouth feeling stretched and lips feeling swollen and jaw feeling tired, but she does anyway, until his one of his hands fists in her hair and the other gently cups the back of her neck and he cries out as he spurts into her mouth.

It’s that same taste from earlier, just stronger, and she swallows it down with a little bit of distaste but no discomfort. He pulls her to her feet and kisses her again, still just as hungry, and she wonders maybe if he’ll ever get enough. “Where are you going? Let me take you there,” he asks, nearly _begs_ , really.

“No,” she says, bending to pick up her nearly-forgotten basket from the forest ground. The basket that is supposed to go to Ben’s estranged uncle. Whatever is in it is meant to aid in a fight against Snoke, and everything she has heard suggests Ben will not like that.

“Who is your father?”

“I don’t have one.” She turns on her heel and makes to leave him there, but he catches her wrist.

“Please, Rey.” She turns her head to look at him and she cannot hold her resolve very well, not when she sees the open pleading in his eyes. “I need to see you again. I want...” He drops his gaze and shakes his head. “Can’t you feel it? We are meant to know each other, and perhaps even... _more_ than that.”

Rey can feel it. She does, and it is terrifying. “I am in the household of Maz Kanata. If you truly wish to, you may see me there.”

“Thank you,” he breathes, and she wants to cry, because the look in his eyes-- it’s like she has given him the world.

Rey could not help herself if she tried. She steps toward him and kisses his lips, softly, chastely. “Come tomorrow.”

He cups her cheek in one large hand and kisses her again, more fiercely. “I will. I promise, sweetheart.”


	2. ii. stranger than earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was peer pressured into this and it's entirely everyone else's fault thank you

When Rey wakes up the next morning, her stomach is cramping. It’s not painful, not really, just uncomfortable. She brings a trembling hand between her thighs, and it comes away damp, the tips of her fingers covered by a thin sheen of clear liquid. She closes her eyes as a shaky breath tugs itself from her throat. Her body is warm, too, and sensitive, she starts noticing as she wakes more fully. Her bedsheets are almost too rough against her skin, and her (very loose-fitting) nightgown suddenly seems like far too much clothing.

Rey’s never felt this before, but she knows enough of the world to know exactly what this must be. If she really is what Ben-- using his Christian name, even only in her thoughts, causes a flush to rise to her cheeks-- told her she is, an Omega... this must be a heat.

Likely only the very beginning of one, to be sure, because she’s not yet feeling... insatiable. Like she cannot function, cannot even breathe without needing to be filled. Like she’s aching for it.

No, she’s not feeling like that at all. Not yet. She’s... sleepy, she thinks, and of course, warm and sensitive, and she would very much like for someone to hold her close and stroke her hair-- but that last symptom, at least, is really a fairly normal occurrence, and may have nothing at all to do with having a heat.

She’s awoken very late this morning. Maz had let her sleep, for some reason. Perhaps Rey’s body simply needed it. Regardless, it must be nearly ten before she even attempts to rise from bed. Then she hears, downstairs, Maz shout something.

Rey has had ample opportunity to study Maz’s tones, and this is not an angry or even forceful shout. Instead, it sounds nearly... triumphant. And she might try to eavesdrop more closely, solely out of curiosity, but then she hears a responding voice, catches some kind of scent faintly hovering in the air, and her mind goes nearly blank, with only one, very significant word remaining.

 _Alpha_.

 _He is her Alpha, and he will protect her, and take care of her, and make sure she has a good heat. She can trust him to be good to her and never hurt her, because he is her Alpha_ , that instinctual voice tells her. It makes her want to race down the stairs, throw herself in his arms, and let him take her away from everything.

Before she knows what she’s doing, she really is halfway down the stairs, but she holds herself back. Maybe... maybe it’s not what she thinks. Maybe none of this is truly what she thinks it is. So she waits in the stairwell and listens. If anyone had asked her to explain herself, she could not, but she listens all the same.

“And then?” Maz asks him, and from her angle, she can’t see her face, but she can see his, and he doesn’t look happy. “After? Will you leave her alone and with a babe?”

Her breath catches in her throat and her heart thrums in her chest.

Ben’s face darkens. “Maz,” he growls, “I could not do that to her.”

He does not speak his intentions, but he has implied them clearly enough. Rey feels dizzy, suddenly, like she needs to lie down, and she rests her body against the wall.

He means what he has told her, then. She thought him, from their... _brief interaction_ yesterday to be a man of his word, possessing _some_ honor at least, but this... this is more than she could have ever expected. That he has come here at all is nothing short of incredible. He got what he wanted yesterday, didn’t he? And yet he truly did want to see her again, he must have, because he is standing in Maz’s tavern right now, having an intense discussion with the woman credited with most of Rey’s upbringing. And he must know she is going into heat, because he’d have to be completely anosmatic to be unable to _smell_ her, but he is standing there, speaking with Maz, and _he has promised he will not abandon her_.

He promised. Yesterday, he called her sweetheart, and he promised.

And today, he is here.

It makes her head spin.

She stumbles forward, propelled by something greater than herself, greater, even, than simple biology, and she slips out of the stairway, standing tall. Ben’s eyes snap to hers and he stands so perfectly still, Rey does not think he’s even breathing.

“Rey,” he says, but he makes no move toward her.

“Hello,” she says. She closes her eyes and bites her lip. Brilliant. What a brilliant thing to say. She’s just a genius.

Maz looks between them and cackles. “Fine, fine, fine.” She shakes her head. “Children,” she mutters, more to herself than to either of them. There is no real censure in her voice when she says, “You will do what you will and not heed anyone else, anyway.” No, she sounds amused, even as she tells them how foolish they are. They both stare at her and she waves a hand. “Well, you two will be good for each other. As if my opinion matters.” She points at Ben. “You just make sure you two don’t get up to any funny business in the upstairs of my tavern. The noise would be bad for business.”

Rey’s cheeks warm at the insinuation-- and not with embarrassment. She watches Maz leave, probably going to prepare things for the afternoon, which is when the tavern really opens, anyway. The large room is entirely empty of any customers right now, fortunately. Judging from the scent of him... Ben is quite willing to fight anyone who so much as looks at her right now.

 _Which might really be appealing to watch_ , her instincts say. She does her best to ignore them.

“Rey,” he repeats, and she cannot hold back any longer, evidently, because before she can really think about what she’s doing, she has thrown herself into his arms, her head resting snugly in the crook of his neck.

“It’s silly,” she says, “but I do believe I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he says, and she does not need to look at his face to know that he is smiling.

She laughs a little, not entirely humorlessly, but not quite what a laugh ought to be, either. “What are we doing?”

“I do not think I know any more than you do,” he says into her hair. She can feel his breath move over her mating gland on the back of her neck and she whines and burrows further into his chest.

“How reassuring,” she murmurs.

“Did I trigger your heat?” he asks, and he does not say it the way Rey would have expected him to, smug or arrogant, with an inflated sense of his own masculinity. No, he sounds... apologetic.

So she tells him bluntly, “Probably.”

His arms tighten around her. “I am sorry,” he says, and he sounds it even more. They both know what it means, that meeting him has sent her into heat like this, and it’s as if the circle of Fate closes around them ever tighter, drawing them closer and closer together until they are so hopelessly entwined they may never fully separate themselves again. Rey thought she was a Beta until yesterday, but today, she is an Omega about to experience her first heat because she met someone who, if the tales are to be believed, is a Match for her.

She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like fate.

“If I could change it for you, I would,” he says.

“And for yourself?”

He inhales deeply, nose buried in her hair, and quietly admits, “I have no wish to change it for myself.”

 _I would choose you_ , he means.

She’s never had anyone choose her before.

Maybe the Fates know what they are doing, after all.

“Alright,” she whispers. He pulls back, only a little, only as much as they can both bear, to look at her questioningly. “We can-- we can do this.” Her voice only shakes a little bit, and she’s almost impressed with herself for that.

“Only if you are certain,” he says, staring deep into her eyes. “I will not have anything less.”

She gives him a shaky smile. “As certain as I can be,” she says.

“Rey...”

“I am certain.” She tips her head back and looks up at him. “Kiss me.”

He pulls her back to him and only brushes his lips over hers, but she can feel the tension in his hands and how much he must be holding himself back. “Come with me?” he says.

“Maz did say the noise would be bad for business,” Rey murmurs, nuzzling her nose into the crook of his neck.

He sweeps her into his arms and she cannot help the little laugh that escapes her. It fits, that he would do that. He’s so... thoughtful, and perhaps a little bit dramatic. She doesn’t think she minds it.

Ben carries her outside, then stops dead in his tracks, right in front of his horse. She looks up, and watches a flush creep across his face. “Will it,” he says hesitantly, “will you be alright, if we ride? I should have considered...”

She smiles. “Yes, although you may have to let go of me if we are to manage to both get in the saddle.”

“Not ideal,” he muses. Ben sets her atop the horse carefully and mounts the beast himself in one swift movement only seconds later. “Fortunately, we needn’t be separated for too long.”

Rey sighs and leans her head back against his chest. “Very fortunate indeed.”

It’s fortunate as well that Lord Solo’s manor is not far from Maz’s tavern. With every minute, Rey can feel the temperature of her body climb, and she aches ever more for Ben’s hands on her bared skin. They could not have ridden more than ten minutes when she can see the manor looming above them, surrounded and ensnared by trees and vines, dark grey against the bright blue background of the sky. Her hands tighten on the arm he has wrapped around her waist. “Don’t be frightened,” he says, and she can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest against her back. He presses a kiss to the gland on the back of her neck. “I will not let anything harm you, Omega.”

Her skin tightens even more with his words, and it’s all she can do to keep from tugging her dress off right there-- or at least her petticoat. Suddenly, she is wearing far too much clothing, and it’s quite uncomfortable, bordering on intolerable, really. She whines and shifts uncomfortably in the saddle.

“Shh, shh, pretty girl.” His arm tightens around her, pulls her closer into himself. “Have patience, Rey. We’ll be there so soon, I’ll make you feel good, I promise.”

She tips her head back and turns it a bit, just so she can see him. “I know,” she whispers. “I trust you, Alpha.”

And she’s been able to feel him, hard against her back, for the entire journey, but when she calls him Alpha... maybe it’s just because she can smell the spike in his arousal, but she swears he gets harder. She preens a little bit at the thought of that, the idea that this big, powerful Alpha is so affected by _her_ \-- it would be enough to make anyone feel a little heady.

He nips at the crook of her neck and soothes it with the flat of his tongue. She shifts her neck, trying to present her mating gland to him, pleading wordlessly for him to bite there too, make it stop, soothe the ache, Alpha, Alpha, _please_...

She doesn’t realize until his mouth brushes her lip, hushing her, that she’s babbling any of it aloud. She must be closer to full heat than she thought.

He urges his horse on, faster, and Rey doesn’t like riding horseback, never has, loathes the bouncing-up-and-down and being-thrown-around-ness of it all, but she barely even notices it. Her mind is beginning, once again, to lose its ability to focus on anything aside from Ben and the solid feel of him against her and how much she wants something she doesn’t know the words for, but she knows she needs nonetheless. Before she knows it, he is leaping from his horse and pulling her off and back into his arms and whisking her inside.

She looks around at the chamber that must be his, his bedchamber and... well. It is entirely what one might have expected.

It’s quite clear that her Ben has not had any softening influences in his life, or much time for amusement. Everything is very bare-bones-necessities, and the newly awakened voice inside her doesn’t quite care for it. It needs soft.

Rey reaches for the pillows and blankets that make up the bed and tug at them, pulling them from the bed to the floor in front of the fireplace and arranging them until they are a much more comfortable mess. She turns and looks at Ben, at some point, and only says, “More,” but he must understand what she means somehow, because almost instantaneously, there are more pillows and blankets within Rey’s reach than she would’ve ever thought she needed-- before today. Today, they seem satisfactory, excellent, even, but certainly not too much. _Good Alpha_ , the beast inside her beams. _Look at how he provides. We have chosen well._

Rey’s not sure how much credit she can take for choosing him, but that seems a very irrelevant concern at this point.

Her nest-- that’s what this must be, she’s only heard rumors and whispers of what really happens during heat, but that’s what this must be-- completed, she turns her mind to the most pressing issue of her clothing. She reaches around to pull at the laces of her frock, but the angle is awkward and her brain is fevered and she can’t seem to reach anything.

Rey chokes back a frustrated sob, and Ben murmurs, “Let me.” Then his hands are on her back, loosening her bodice until she can pull it off, and she quickly sheds her remaining clothing. She’s so caught up in the relief of it that she does not truly realize that she is standing naked in front of Ben until she hears his breath catch and feels his hand again, this time flat and warm against her bare stomach. She leans back into him and whines in discomfort. His clothes are still on. That voice doesn’t care for that at all. They are supposed to be equal and opposite, and he should bare himself to her, too.

She cannot seem to quite articulate this, however, so she settles for tugging at his tunic insistently. He grabs her wrists and presses an open-mouthed kiss to each of her palms before he strips down until his chest is uncovered.

Rey places her palm in the center of his chest, hand spread wide. _Big and strong_ , the voice inside feels like it’s nodding, somehow. _Good, so good, he will be so good._

Her hand slips from his chest and finds its way to the laces of his pants and she tugs on these too, until his hands replace hers, and before Rey really has time to process it, he’s standing before her, just as naked as she is.

She could not say which part of him she wants to touch first.

Perhaps she should be intimidated. She has heard plenty of tales of pain and suffering, during heats and on wedding nights. And she knows he is not small, remembers the weight of him in her mouth and against her tongue. It is a little different to see him like this, but she is not afraid. Because she remembers how he felt and how he tasted, yes, but she also remembers the way he made her feel.

She rubs her thighs together subtly, and reaches for him, only to find that he’s reaching for her too. They meet in the middle, her hands on his shoulders and his hands cradling her face. He reaches down and wraps an arm around her waist and presses his body to hers, and she moans. This is somehow exactly what she has been craving and not nearly enough to satisfy her, all at once.

His hand on her waist wanders down and he grabs a handful of her ass. She gasps and squirms, surprised that even that feels good. Maybe Ben doesn’t make her feel good because he really knows how. Maybe he just makes her feel good because it’s Ben, and everywhere his skin presses against hers feels like it’s been struck with lightning.

Suddenly, Ben picks her up, and she instinctively wraps her legs around his waist. His cock brushes against her stomach and her already-soaked folds, and she gasps. That. That is what the creature inside her wants. Him, inside of her, buried deep. Yes. That is what she needs. That is what will cool the temperature of her body, restore her wits and her reason, make the vague discomfort that fills every part of her disappear.

He lowers them down, still kissing her, until her back hits the nest she’s made on the floor, and she nearly purrs in satisfaction. “Alpha,” she whines. “Please, I need you.” She lets her legs fall open, exposing herself to him.

“I know,” he whispers, kissing her neck. “Look at how wet you are for me already, sweet one, just like the good girl you are. Such a good girl,” he croons.

“Yes,” Rey gasps, “yes, please, I’m a good Omega, I’m _your_ good Omega.”

He makes soothing noises in her ear and his hand slides down her body, finding her entrance. “You are. You are my _perfect_ little Omega.” She bucks her hips, trying to catch one of his fingers and pull it inside her to sate this strange need that’s filling her body.

“I need-- I need--” she starts, but his another one of his fingers finds her clit, and talking suddenly becomes very difficult. “Inside, please, Alpha, please, I’m so empty without you, I need you, please--”

“I know.” Two of his massive fingers are inside her, and it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. They scissor inside her, stretching her open. “I know what you need, angel. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

She whimpers and bucks her hips, and he withdraws his fingers. Rey almost cries out even more loudly, but one look from Ben has her stilling. He will take care of her. She trusts him. He will give her what she needs.

He brings his hand to her lips, and without even thinking, she accepts his fingers, dripping with her slick, into her mouth. She remembers what he liked when she put her mouth on him yesterday and mimics it against his fingers, swirling her tongue over them and swallowing down the taste of herself. She... would not necessarily say she likes the taste, but neither does she dislike it-- a fact for which she is grateful; when she thinks of the way he tasted her yesterday (could it really have only been yesterday?), she thinks she would feel quite mortified if she tasted _bad_.

He pulls his fingers out and presses his thumb to her lips, the rest of his fingers curling around her neck. His thumb drops to her bottom of her jaw and he tilts her face up, leaning down and kissing her. Ben’s tongue swipes deep inside her mouth, almost as if he’s determined to seek out the lingering taste of herself and kiss it from her.

Ben pushes himself up on his elbows and then holds his body there, hovering above hers. Rey can still feel him pressed against her stomach, though, and with every second, the fire beneath her skin burns hotter. “Alpha...” She trails her fingers down his chest, listens to his breath catch. “Please, I’m ready.”

His eyes darken. “Tell me again, Rey.”

“I’m ready.”

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.”

She reaches down and wraps her hand around his cock so there will be no room for doubt, but still, he says, “Tell me. Use your words, precious girl.”

“I want you. I’m ready. I’m sure,” she tells him, the words rolling off her tongue as easily and naturally as a nursery rhyme she’d learned long ago and was only just recalling.

Gently, he takes her hand off his cock and places it above her head. “Both hands above your head,” he says, and she immediately complies. “Good girl.” He puts his hands on her ribcage and brushes his thumbs against the undersides of her breasts and just stares at her for a good minute. Rey fidgets under his hands and he leans down and kisses her. “I am sorry to leave you waiting like that, darling. I didn’t mean to; I only...” He looks at her again, brings his hand up and cups her cheek. “I cannot believe you are real.” 

That thing inside her preens, and Rey herself feels very... warm, though not in an uncomfortable way, no, it’s a pleasant warmth that wells inside her stomach, completely separate from the insistent heat ruling the rest of her body. She touches his face, then takes his wrist and pulls his hand from her face and presses it between her thighs. “I am very real,” she says.

“Yes, you are,” he says, and he kisses her again. He tilts her hips up and takes himself in hand and before she knows what to make of it, he’s pressing deep inside her. She whimpers and clutches at his arms. The sudden fullness of it all seizes her body with the need to hold onto something. His fingers stroke her hip and he whispers pretty, soothing things into the crook of her neck, things about how good she is, how good she feels, how beautiful, and all his-- his _angel, sweetheart, darling_ , he calls her. _My love_ , he says.

Maybe it’s his words, or her heat, or the way he feels once he’s finally all the way inside her, but as soon as he is, she comes apart, crying out his name and clenching around him.

“Fuck,” he mutters into her skin. He grips her hip then instead of caressing it and his teeth find her neck-- not quite where she wants them, where she _needs_ them, but she likes the way they scrape across her skin all the same. “Perfect, Rey, my perfect little Omega.”

She shifts her hips uncomfortably-- “Alpha,” she whines-- needing something, something more.

“I told you, Rey,” he murmurs. “I will take care of you.”

And he does, finally, finally moving his hips.

She sighs, her body feeling not sated, exactly, but more content than she had been. The heat beneath her skin is not receding yet, but it isn’t growing, either. It remains at a level that is almost comfortable. And the rest of her...

Rey did not know it would feel like this. She knew it could, but had heard of that only rarely and in vague whispers. But there had not been anything that could prepare her for the way Ben’s cock stretches her now, the way he fills her, and the fire in her belly that, she is quite certain, is entirely unrelated to her heat. She wants more. She wants him to touch her everywhere. Ben’s attention is very single mindedly focused on her neck, and Rey cannot say she minds. It feels good in a way she could never have anticipated, but at the same time, it isn’t enough. She wants-- she wants--

She wants him to bite her. To make her his. And even in her heat-addled mind, she can review all his actions-- how he has respected her decisions above all else in every moment of their acquaintance; the care he has taken with her, even now, careful not to seek only his own pleasure-- and she finds it is not just the creature inside her that is puffed up with pride at the success of finding a strong Alpha that wants him as a mate.

 _Not yet_ , some secret part of her still insists. They knew this was a possibility, almost an inevitability, when she had agreed to this with him. She knew what she was consenting to. But still-- now is not the time for this conversation, not when he’s thrusting into her in a way that has her close to orgasming again already, not when his breath is hot on her skin and his hips are beginning to stutter.

And God, she didn’t think it possible, but she feels him swell inside her, growing impossibly bigger, and his thrusts have become shallower, not moving in and out as much as moving inside.

“Fuck,” he says again, his voice rougher now. He reaches down and finds her clit and thumbs at it roughly. “Come on, Rey, come on, come for me, Omega. I need you to _come_.”

Her fingers seize in his hair and on his back and she’s probably leaving scratches but she can’t afford to care when her mind goes blissfully blank like this and she’s shaking apart again. He stops moving, locked inside her, and she can feel...

Oh. He’s coming inside her. She knew he would, of course, it just feels... strange. Not bad, just strange. Good strange, even, maybe.

He collapses above her for a second, maybe two, before rolling them over carefully so she rests on his chest.

Rey presses her face into his neck, now. Impulsively, she licks it, and he groans and she feels another spurt of cum inside her. Interesting. Perhaps he wants her mouth on his neck as badly as she wants his on hers.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. He pushes her hair back from her face.

She giggles, only a little. (Who can fault her? It is certainly a strange situation she’s found herself in.) “Perfectly well,” she replies.

“It... it was not too much?”

“I would have said if it were,” she tells him firmly. “Trust me.”

She watches him relax underneath her, underneath her touch, and feels that same surge of power she’d felt when she had him on his knees in the forest for her.

Ben swallows and holds her a little closer. “I trust you,” he says softly.

“Tell me something.”

“Anything.” “Do you prefer sunrise or sunset?”

He laughs. “Sunset, I think. I have never been keen on rising early enough to see the dawn.”

Rey hums as though she’s weighing his answer carefully in her mind, before saying, shyly, “I only think... we have not had much chance to know each other. I should like to change that.”

“Of course. Anything you wish to know,” he promises.

They spend the next half an hour only talking. She tells him of her parents and how she cannot even remember their faces now, confessing to him how lonely she had felt when she realized they would never return to her. He tells her, in turn, of his, and how he could do nothing to win their approval and love and how they had pushed him away when they were all he needed. Neither of them are a stranger to loneliness, but, he says, kissing her softly, they need not be lonely any longer.

It is then she knows.

“Ben,” she says softly, trailing her fingertips over his face and the scar that bisects it. “I want...” She swallows. The fire beneath her skin that had abated with Ben’s cock inside her, filling her with cum has begun its return, as if the subject matter she wishes to speak of were not enough to tie her tongue.

“What do you want, Rey?”

She looks at him then, and it seems the promise is written in his eyes: Anything. You can ask for anything, and I will give it to you.

“You.”

His brows furrow. “You have me.”

“No.” She lifts herself off his body and turns her back to him, drawing her hair up off her neck with her hands. “I want you...” she flushes, the words blunt and improper, “to bite me. I want to mate you.”

She is glad for her turned back, though she is certain he can see the flush coloring her skin, because she cannot see his face.

She can feel him, though, sit up behind her and wrap his arms around her, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder. “Are you certain? You do not have to--” “Ben. Trust me.”

He groans and nips at the delicate skin of her shoulder before pulling away. “Lay on your stomach, then, little Omega.” She does, her head cradled in her arms. He pulls her hips up off the ground, then leans in and traces her slit with the flat of his tongue. She whines and pushes back against him, but he is gone before she can truly complain. “I am sorry to tease,” he says, but she doesn’t care about that.

“Inside me,” she’s almost begging again, already, “Alpha, please, inside me, bite me, I want to be yours.”

He pushes inside much easier the second time, Rey’s muscles already familiar with the intrusion. Ben brushes the hair from the nape of her neck as his other hand travels up her abdomen and up her chest before holding her neck. He pulls her up so that her back is flush with his chest as he rocks them back and forth. His hand moves down and rolls her nipple as his other draws careful circles around her clit and his mouth... He kisses and licks her gland, but careful not to use his teeth, not yet. It all has her unable to feel or think of anything aside from Ben-- and she thinks she enjoys it.

She enjoys his mouth, too, in a way she would never had expected. But he says such filthy things, and Lord, she loves them so.

“You have the prettiest pussy, precious girl,” he murmurs in her ear. “And the prettiest little tits, too. God, you’re perfect,” he groans. “So tight, and so wet for me. You want me to bite you, yeah, Omega? Yeah, Rey? You want to be mine?”

“Yes,” she moans. “Please, Alpha, yes. Mate me.”

“Fuck.” His tongue swipes over her gland again, and she convulses between his body and his hands. “Gonna fill you up so good,” he promises, “gonna be yours...” He swears again, and finally, finally, his teeth sink into the skin of her neck, and Rey--

Rey is no stranger to orgasms. She had never had any at another’s hand before Ben, yes, but she had plenty on her own. But she’s never felt anything like this, like whole galaxies were created and destroyed behind her eyelids, like every particle in her body has been lifted to a higher plane, like she is not _Rey_ anymore, but something entirely other, ancient and impossibly powerful.

When she returns to herself, that creature inside her is no longer sated, despite Ben’s cum still warm inside her. She is possessed by the need to complete their bond, to seal it. Somehow, she manages to turn her head and find Ben, find the swollen bit of skin just behind his ear, and she bites down hard, hard enough to scar like it’s supposed to. His hips buck and she swears she can feel him jolt inside her, and he shakes above her for the longest time.

Rey grins at him when his eyes reopen, unapologetically predatory. “This is how it should be. The way it is supposed to be,” she says. She could not say where her certainty came from, only that is was bone-deep and irrevocable, the same way someone knows up is up and down is down.

“Yes,” he agrees. Ben lays them both on their sides in the makeshift nest Rey had made. “It is.” He kisses the top of her head and the back of her neck soothingly.

Rey falls asleep with her mate’s hand on her hip, her bite on his neck, and a very satisfied smile on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you try to peer pressure me into a third chapter, i WILL cry and that is a promise!!
> 
> i will probably cry anyway, but that is not the point!!!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and also i'm sorry ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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